The teams for all three North American host countries have been eliminated from the World Cup.
Canada fell to Morocco, then Mexico’s hopeful chant of “y si sí” was silenced on Sunday against England. A day later, on Monday, the U.S. lost in blowout fashion to Belgium.
KUT News’ Jimmy Maas and Juan Garcia, hosts of the soccer podcast ¡Vamos Verde! and World Cup Today, joined the Standard to break down where things go from here. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Jimmy, let’s start with the top line here. What happened to the U.S. last night? 4-1 is not a close game.
Jimmy Maas: No it isn’t. I’m gonna just basically re-tell what the coach said after the game: It was not their night. They didn’t even look like the team that had played against Turkey.
There was a lot of miscommunication, there was lot of missed passes. They just were off.
Matt Freese, who is a fine goalkeeper for New York City FC, made probably the worst mistake of his professional career. He’s a Harvard-educated kid. He’s gonna do well in life, but he will probably have this play every single time someone talks about him in their mind.
Juan Garcia: Every single time he closes his eyes to go to bed at night.
Jimmy Maas: It just wasn’t their night. And Belgium is good. We tend to forget about this stuff when we do the “USA, USA” stuff — other countries are pretty good at soccer. Belgium is a top 10 team. This result was expected.
While sad, I do think it’s not time to throw everything out. There have been some gains made this World Cup for Team USA.
Now we have to talk a bit about the drama this weekend and President Trump’s call to FIFA and Folarin Balogun’s red card reversal for the U.S. How big a deal is this in the world of soccer, Juan?
Juan Garcia: For a little bit, it felt like it was the biggest story in the sport. The tournament means a lot to people and anything that is perceived to be unfair or corrupt in any way, it hits close to home. There’s a lot of people to get upset about it.
Obviously, the tournament and the integrity of the tournament has been questioned repeatedly — and not just lately. This is just another example for it.
It made Belgium a very easy team to get behind since now they stood for the opposition to this perceived corrupt, behind-closed-door sort of operating procedure for FIFA and the president and all of the folks that were involved in that whole process.
How surprising was this news actually, Jimmy? And is there a precedent here or does this just seem like one more thing?
Jimmy Maas: It does feel like one more thing. There is a growing populist movement. It has, really, no power to ask Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA, to resign. This is an elected position within that organization. I believe his term ends next year.
Jürgen Klopp, who is a well-respected coach from the Premier League… There are a lot of other people that are asking for him [Infantino] to step down. I don’t think that’s going to necessarily occur. It’s far too lucrative for the head of FIFA to stick around and stay in control of that organization.
This will probably go down as one of most successful, financially-speaking, World Cups ever. He’s going gonna reap the benefits of that and stepping down, for him, would be passing on a lot cash in the future.
What about other countries with players that got red cards? Are they going to say “well, we want our president to give you a call, FIFA”?
Juan Garcia: There’s already members of parliament in the UK trying to petition a reversal of the suspension for Jarell Quansah for the red card he got in the game against Mexico. The domino effect is certainly starting to kick up steam.
Jimmy Maas: It’s sad that this kind of thing is overshadowing what has been a pretty entertaining World Cup.
The stars have shown out. The biggest names in soccer have come to the United States and put on goal-scoring barrages for us all to witness with our own eyes — whether we’re in person or watching on our television.
Well, what about the other round of 16 games? What stood out to you, Juan?
Juan Garcia: Well, we could start with the banger between Mexico and England. It might be one of my favorite games I’ve seen so far in the tournament. I might be forgetting some other very good games from the group stage, but that was fantastic.
Paraguay bullied France for 90 minutes and France almost feels like they got lucky, even though it was very clear they were the better team on the day. Paraguay just showed up with an absolute wall and stifled them.
Norway looks scary. Morocco have been looking scary, and today we get to see two of the biggest stars in the world: Mohamed Salah of Liverpool fame taking on Lionel Messi, who needs no introduction.
So there were a lot of great underdog teams that did so well, but if you’re an American, Jimmy, and you got really excited about soccer during this World Cup — maybe for the first time, you’re a new fan — what should you do for the next four years?
Jimmy Maas: Well, there are lots of outlets for you. Luckily, soccer is played nearly constantly in the world somewhere. There is a lot for you to do.
The MLS [Major League Soccer] is about to kick off the second half of their season, so that will give you a salve — a paste that you can put on this wound starting the late part of this month. NWSL [National Women’s Soccer League] is playing this weekend. There is so much soccer.
And then if you want to go high level: Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, all the European leagues where the top players — or all these guys that we’re talking about — are playing. Even most of the U.S. team… All those teams kick off in just three weeks.
I mean, the professional soccer tournament calendar is kind of a grind. And luckily, it’s always out there for us to watch.
Juan Garcia: And there’s so much to keep up with. No one person can actually keep up with all of it, so you’re spoiled for choice once you find the thing that really gets you excited.
Jimmy Maas: You know, it is disappointing that the U.S. fell this round again. They’ve only made it past the round of 16 one time. This is kind of where they get off the bus pretty much most of their tournaments — five of their 11 World Cups.
But, you know, you load up. Hope springs eternal. Soccer is suffering, for the most part.
England — great soccer culture. They’ve only won one World Cup. Spain only won one World Cup. So there’s a lot of hope, and that’s kind of what soccer is for the most part. You just pick a team and hope for the best.
